Running for Your Life: The Car Show, 2019

On Saturday (Aug. 10) we went to a car show at the 31st annual Otisville Country Fair (best line of the day: “The Petting Zoo Was a No-Show,” which spurred this mediation:

The 1963 white Impala convertible with red leather interior, chrome grille work, white walls, rear tire walls, low slung to the ground.

What was Uncle Gord and Aunt Gloria’s car. Working class, pride of ownership, the identification of personality – and automobile. When Uncle Gord is behind the wheel of his Impala (was it golden??), how sexy and in command of his life did he feel?

What do you feel when you go to a car show at a country fair in 2019?

You reach out and touch something deep inside. Which car is for you? And why?

Sadly, cars today do not seem like extensions of the self. Something is lost.

A person’s connection to their car is seen to be an aberration, a broken thing, a maladjustment.

There is no human bond to the car brad, size of the world, how not one place, one group of workers – men and women – built it, own it.

The only place I’ve seen my reflection this weekend is in the lustrous finish of the 1972 Chevy Nova, painted darkest brown with a hint of red, a promise of burgundy …

Next: Running for Your Life: Nutrition Notes




Running for Your Life: Joan Mitchell, Lady Painter

On July 12, impressions left by Joan Mitchell show, entitled, “I Carry My Landscapes Around With Me.”

What is yellow? Orange frenzy
To winter sun yellow, a child’s
Innocence, passing through to
Torment, clutter, what’s lost
There is no easy way to hold
On, but in the painting you can
Cheat. Dive in and hold.

Blue, black, violet, again
Vortex of black to a white
Center, dare to enter if you
Will. There is danger to be found
In the least unexpected places.

Drip. Drip. Drip, the four-panel
“Dark” one, mostly light blue, violet
Some dashes of the dark blue,
The Midnight Lake

The light one: Bananaman!!

Next: Running for Your Life: Nutrition Notes


Running for Your Life: Home Truths

Beyond the RED LINE of economic-racial segregation:

How the tyranny of a million YouTube videos threatens an informed democracy. Yes, the poor will get poorer, the rich richer. We are but a podcast-puddle of untutored, selfish minds.

“Total liberty for the wolves is death to the lambs.”
 – Isaiah Berlin

Next: Running for Your Life: Nutrition Notes



Running for Your Life: Routine 66

  • ·        Run every other day (in all kinds of weather, with possible exceptions: electrical tempests, tornados, blizzards, hailstorms).
  • ·        Do 60 REAL push-ups every night; even when you have zero energy for it.
  • ·        Stretch! There is (are) at least one (OK, two) stretches that will yield the kind of outcome that will stave off injury. Do these exercises twice a day (no excuses).
  • ·        Tai chi core movements: I do three sets, ten minutes per set. Set aside the time: three times a week at minimum
  • ·        Meditate: Put down you g-d phone and let your body drop into full relaxation mode. Best results: When long-term memory shapes to such a degree that you actually feel that you’ve reverse-aged decades.
Next: Running for Your Life: Home Truths

Cool Underside, a poem

There is a rhythm

To my days that

Leaves room to stop

See the fat caterpillar

On the cool underside

Of the large tire rim,

The car parked on First

Street, Mary with me

And she doesn’t walk

On, rather she gathers

The caterpillar into the palm of her hand

And deposits the yellow fuzzy beauty

Into a green, leafy garden bush that is

A welcome shelter out of the harsh sun.

Next: Running for Your Life: Routine 66